Save The Parish Cornwall and The Cornish Buildings Groups respond to Cornish Bishops
The Bishops of Truro
and St Germans are actively misleading the people of Cornwall by saying that
there are no diocesan plans for church closures - because their own documents
show that the likelihood of shutting churches is being openly prepared for,
Save The Parish Cornwall and the Cornish Buildings Group (CBG) say.
The two campaigning groups said earlier this week that the Bishops’ radical restructuring plans will change the face of church going – and the Cornish landscape - forever. The Bishops responded (27/10/22) by saying that there were no diocesan plans for church closures.
“The Bishops are simply playing with words here and are actively misleading the
people of Cornwall,” said Susan Roberts of Save The Parish Cornwall, which
is campaigning to keep priests in parishes and churches open.
“Plans drawn up by
deaneries which envisage huge benefices have been driven by and formally signed
off by the Bishops: the Bishops might not technically wield the axe but they
effectively do so by shaping and driving these plans forwards then officially
approving them.
“These huge benefices
will swallow up small rural churches and in many cases will inevitably result
in closures as the number of local worshippers fall and income
drops. There may be no formal written-down ‘overall’ diocesan plan but
there are many individual plans, endorsed by both Bishops. These linguistic
games are unworthy of them.”
The pressure groups
say that plans drawn up through the restructuring programme called On The Way-
rolled out across Cornwall in the year since the pandemic - as well
as the Diocese’s 2023 Budget Consultation state clearly that churches that do
not pay their way face closure.
“For instance in
North Cornwall, the original draft of West Wivelshire Deanery plan says that
one task to be implemented is ‘to consider which churches may need to close…’
“Next door in East
Wivelshire the first paragraph of the deanery’s original plan’s ‘Buildings for
Mission’ section stated ‘a reduction in number of church buildings to reduce
the amount of mission energy and finance they take up, distracting from the
real purpose of the building.’
“Sections like this, explicitly discussing and threatening the closure of some
of Cornwall’s most historic rural churches, are in very many of the OTW Deanery
plans,” says Susan Roberts. “Each plan was drawn up under the guidance of the
Bishops and explicitly approved by them.
“The finances
of these Deanery plans were drawn up before the current national cost-of-living
crisis. They were optimistic then but will be totally unrealistic now, and the
challenge of keeping churches open under these plans even more risky.”
Patrick Newberry,
Chairman of the CBG, has said that as many as half of the churches in East
Cornwall could be closed as plans for central ‘mission churches’ and lay
ministry – rather than priests in rural parishes – are implemented. The CBG,
which works to preserve ancient buildings and Cornwall’s heritage, believes it
is time to challenge the lack of consultation on this re-organisation.
“Our two Cornish Bishops are ignoring local voices and pushing through these plans despite considerable grass-roots opposition,” says Susan Roberts. “For some years, Church Commissioners’ money and diocesan reserves have been poured into mission churches in five Cornish towns while rural parishes suffer. Now this is being taken a step further, as the Bishops roll out their vision of a new Church of England across Cornwall with reduced clergy - ignoring centuries of Cornish tradition.”
Despite Save The Parish’s repeated requests, the diocese has failed to produce figures to support its claims of increased worshippers and donations through its mission church schemes, funded by the Church Commissioners and diocesan reserves.
Ends
Notes to Editors
1.
Interviews available. Call Neil Wallis on 07710 664
144.
2. Save The Parish Cornwall - part of the national Save The Parish movement - was set up in April 2022. For more information, call Susan Roberts on 07772 128 014 or email savetheparishcornwall@gmail.com
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